How a for-profit firm fosters protest
It sells consulting services to big companies such as Google and Audi, and to
charities such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the American Civil
Liberties Union. It helps them to build mass movements to support their
favourite causes. Audi, for example, wants to design and promote machines to
dispense clean water in India, a market where it hopes to burnish its car brand.
Purpose also hopes to develop a business promoting “new economy” products such
as solar energy. It will recommend to its members that they buy solar power from
such-and-such a provider. In return, it will charge a referral fee.
Mr Heimans says he will work only with clients that fit with Purpose’s
values. BP, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are out because, he says, “they are bad for
the world.” (Cars are fine, apparently.)
